The UCOS team's latest case involves the murder of a private investigator. The case has been reopened after an anonymous person sent the dead man's note book to the police. The book details two of his cases; a man who ran off with thousands of pounds of his girlfriend's money and the theft from a man who is dying of cancer. It is the latter case that gives the episode its title; one of the items stolen is an incredibly rare Russian stamp known as 'The Russian Cousin'. This leads the team to the world of stamp dealing as they try to find the thief by identifying people he might have approached. It is assumed that the killer will be the target of one of the man's investigations but as the story progresses other possibilities arise. Away from the case Steve is hoping to make some money by letting his house to tourists visiting London; it doesn't start well when the two 'Italian' girls who rent it for the weekend turn out to be somewhat disreputable.
This episode proved to be a step up from the previous somewhat weak episode. The main case was interesting and provided a decent number of suspects. When the killer was finally revealed it was neither too obvious nor too unlikely. The regular cast did a solid job and guest star Dean Andrews did a particularly good job as Warnock, the dying man whose stamp was stolen. The side story involving Steve's house letting was amusing enough; I'm sure everybody will have guessed that the two 'Italians' were up to no good but exactly what they were doing to do wasn't quite so obvious. Overall this was a pretty good episode with a good mystery and some humorous moments.
This episode proved to be a step up from the previous somewhat weak episode. The main case was interesting and provided a decent number of suspects. When the killer was finally revealed it was neither too obvious nor too unlikely. The regular cast did a solid job and guest star Dean Andrews did a particularly good job as Warnock, the dying man whose stamp was stolen. The side story involving Steve's house letting was amusing enough; I'm sure everybody will have guessed that the two 'Italians' were up to no good but exactly what they were doing to do wasn't quite so obvious. Overall this was a pretty good episode with a good mystery and some humorous moments.
